Putting hydrodynamic interactions to work: tagged particle separation

J. L. IGUAIN, J. KURCHAN

EUROPHYSICS LETTERS

Año: 2003 vol. 63 p. 715 - 720

0295-5075

­ Separation of magnetically tagged cells is performed by attaching markers to asubset of cells in suspension and applying fields to pull from them in a variety of ways. Themagnetic force is proportional to the field gradient, and the hydrodynamic interactions play onlya passive, adverse role. We propose using a homogeneous rotating magnetic field only to maketagged particles rotate, and then performing the actual separation by means of hydrodynamicinteractions, which thus play an active role. The method, which we explore here theoreticallyand by means of numerical simulations, lends itself naturally to sorting on large scales.